Vanquishby TheWingManChaptersChapter 1 - Flung into the unknownChapter 2 - The old castleChapter 3 - What are you?Chapter 4 - Talking to one anotherChapter 5 - Screwing things upChapter 1 - Flung into the unknownHumanity was facing a very common challenge. Surviving. Earth had gotten over populated with humans and because of that, starvation eventually kicked in. Different countries had a different number of casualties, but the highest death count due to starvation currently belonged to Russia. As the Russians were starving and were therefor, in a state of crisis, a terrorist group known as "The Russian Star" took over Russia's military forces and stole all their technology, weapons and equipment. When they seized all the power in Russia, they wanted more. That's when they turned their eyes to the newly built American colony, Providence. It was originally built to help the US as it was getting over populated. The same as every country on Earth. Because of its energy designs, they figured it was possible to use it as a weapon of mass destruction. They finally accomplished this when they sent their troops or rather, R.I's, to take the colony. Nobody knows how many civilians got evacuated or got killed. They attacked too fast for anyone to anticipate. Eventually, they did use it as a weapon of mass destruction. It was used on San Fransisco and killed thousands of people. Maybe even more. No one really knows to this date. After they had used it, the supposed 'leader' of this terrorist group contacted the president to tell her that if America didn't surrender, he would use his new found weapon again. On New York. The president took Colonel Robert Burns, a war veteran, and put him in charge of a task force called Bravo Company. DARPA also offered to help by sending one of their researchers, me, Sam Gideon. I was sent to help Bravo Company retake Providence and to stop the terrorist group using the weapon of mass destruction on New York. Originally, I thought that this would be a walk in the park. Take out a few dozen R.I's, get to the manual control panel in the control room at the center of the colony and deactivate the weapon. Boy, did I think wrong. Providence colony. 1300 hours. "You have R.I's closing in on your position!" Sam tossed the remains of his cigarette away and peeked around a corner, only to have bullets miss him by an inch as he quickly put his head back into cover. "FUCK! I can't reach the gate. Elena, hack it!" "I can't Sam. They've put analogue locks on it. You're going to have to blow that gate up." Sam sighed and looked towards the commanding officer of the squad he was helping, Lieutenant Colonel Burns. "Nothing's ever easy, is it?" Burns snorted and rolled out of cover, shooting the R.I's who were closing in on them. "If it was easy, we'd have already done it." A shower of bullets nearly hit Sam in the face as he activated the boosters in his suit and slid to another piece of cover. Once he was satisfied that he was in an unflankable position, he started firing all of his bullets into the never ending stampede of R.I's. He must have shot 10, 20, 40, even 70. But they just kept coming. "Jesus mother of shit! How many of these damn robots are there?!" Burns grunted and rolled over to Sam's position, barely missing another barrage of bullets. He peeked over cover and started spraying the incoming robots with his minigun. Every time he destroyed one, another one replaced it. It was like there was an infinite amount of them. He put his minigun down by his side and brought his head back down. "Fuck knows. Doesn't matter how many there is. Just more shit to kill." Sam snorted and threw a grenade into the oncoming storm of R.I's. Its blast radius took out quite a few dozen R.I's, but that didn't stop them. Not one bit. Sam looked anywhere and everywhere for an exit. If they stayed here, they'd be dead in a couple of minutes. He believed in the term "take one for the team", but he didn't particularly feel like dying. Not yet, anyway. After about 40 seconds of trying to spot an exit, he saw one just behind them. It was a door behind one of the bunkers. A few meters away. He tapped Burns on the shoulder and he turned around to look at Sam with an expression that said "The fuck do you want?" Sam pointed to the exit. "Burns. We've gotta retreat to that door over there!" Burns didn't like the idea of retreating. He always thought retreating or surrendering was for pussies. But, Sam was right. If they stayed here much longer, they'd probably get killed very quickly. After a few seconds of thought, Burns nodded and motioned for Sam to lead the way. Sam slid over to the exit, avoiding bullets, missiles and lasers on the way. "FUCK. FUCK. SHIT!" One missile flew over his head as he made it to the exit. He turned to face Burns and the rest of Bravo Company. The next thing he knew, Burns was running as fast as he could to him. When he was about to make it, a stray bullet hit his leg, causing him to fall face flat. "BURNS!" The rest of bravo company were getting slaughtered as Sam rushed over to Burns and tried to help him up. "Come on Burns. Get up!" He put his arm around Burns and tried to help him to the exit. For a second, Sam had forgotten about the masses of robots behind him and all the bullets that were flying past him. That was until one hit Burns in the other leg, causing him to scream out in pain and fall down onto one knee. Sam got him back on his feet as fast as he could. "Come on Burns. You can make it!" As he came closer to the door, he heard something behind him. He turned around to see a giant wave of energy coming his way, destroying everything in its path. "Oh bollocks. That's not good..." He moved as fast as he could to the door, still having his arm around Burns. As he got to the door and was just about to open it, the energy wave hit both him and Burns. The next thing he knew, he was in extreme pain. It felt as if his blood was molten lava and it was burning through his skin. Before he could even attempt to let out a scream, blackness took him as he passed out. The sun outside was shining down on the land of Equestria. The controller of said sun, Princess Celestia, was in her throne room, reading letters from worried ponies. They were mostly complaints concerning Luna's return as many ponies were worried that she might still be Nightmare Moon. Celestia had replied telling them that it was nonsense to think that Luna was even remotely evil anymore, but they wouldn't have any of it. Some had even gone out of their way to protest. That was the one thing that got Celestia annoyed. Only slightly, however. She sighed as she threw the current letter that she was reading to the side of her. "I really need a break." Celestia loved ruling her subjects. It wasn't that she wanted a break from THEM. She just wanted to have nothing to deal with for just one day. But, something ALWAYS happened in Equestria. it was either something as bad as Discord escaping his prison or something as tiny as Twilight forgetting to send her a friendship report and then said mare would freak out, making it worse. Before she could pick up another letter, the door to her royal throne room burst open. One of her royal guards appeared in the doorway as he quickly ran up to her. He bowed. "Your highness. I have some important news." As he got up, he noticed that the princess started waving a hoof. "At ease, my royal guard. What news do you have for me?" She gave him a serious but sincere look. "Thank you, princess. Some ponies reported seeing something in the outskirts of Canterlot, near the exit of the Everfree Forest. We didn't believe what they described at first, but we sent a couple of guards to scout around. They came back and had a look of fear and shock on their face. We asked them what they had found and...well..they said that they saw an unconscious...creature of some sort. They said that it was a bipedal, alien looking....thing. It had some sort of advanced armor on. That's what they presumed, anyway." Celestia's face was filled with shock and surprise. If it was an..alien, this would be their first contact with another species. Well, another species from a different planet. And that's even if it was from somewhere else. She had to check this out before making any assumptions. She stood up from her throne quickly and went over to the guard who was now cowering in fear. Celestia noticed this and plastered a warm smile onto her face. "I'm sorry if I startled you, my guard. But if this is as you explained, then it is very important that I go and 'inspect' this creature myself. It could be a species that we have never seen before. You said it was unconscious, correct?" The guard nodded. "Yes, your highness." She gave him another serious look that made him feel uncomfortable. "Is it safe? The Everfree Forest can be a dangerous place, as we all know what creatures live there." The guard nodded again. "Yes, your highness. After the scouts reported this to me, I sent a squad of royal guards to the area where the scouts had spotted this creature to make sure that no creatures attempt to harm it or it doesn't attempt to harm anything or anypony when and if it awakes. Celestia nodded. "That's good. Thank you, my guard. Oh, where are my manners. What is your name?" The guard waved a hoof dismissively. "No worries, your highness. My name is Steel Blade. I'm a Lieutenant." Celestia walked closer to him and smiled. "Well then, Lieutenant Blade, do you mind if I come with you to meet this creature? I would at least like to try and ask it a few questions, when it's awake, if it can speak." The guard shook his head. "Of course I don't mind, your highness. Follow me." And with that, the princess of the sun went off with her royal guard to find what could be something that might go down in Equestrian history. The sounds of birds and wind could be heard as a certain bipedal super soldier woke up. "Ugh...what happened? Where am I?..." Sam put his hand to his head to try and stop the headache that had just come on. Well, you could call it a headache, but a better term would be a giant elephant jumping up and down inside your head thinking that your brain is a soft bed. After a few seconds, the memories came flooding back to him. The R.I's, Burns getting shot and most importantly, the energy wave that had knocked him out. And the overwhelming pain that he had experienced just before he passed out. "What was that energy wave anyway? What did it do to me..." He sat up and looked around. He saw nothing but tree's and grass. "That's strange...I wasn't anywhere near the colony's residential garden and that has buildings in it. This place looks like a dark, desolate forest." He mentally shrugged and stood up onto his feet. He was surprised at how easy he got up considering the immense amount of pain he had gone through not long ago. "Right...I need to check that all of me is in one piece. Head? Check. Both legs? Check. Both arms? Check." He moved his arms and legs to check that they were functioning alright. He smiled inside his helmet when they complied. "That's good. At least my limbs AND the suit is working." He wanted to test to see if the boosters in his suit were still working properly. He instantly slid over to the tree in front of him. He smirked. "Right. Boosters are working fine. That should come in handy if I encounter anything in this place. Then again...I don't even know if I'm still on the colony." It seemed highly illogical that he was on the colony anymore. First of all, he would have probably been shot to death when he passed out by the R.I's to make sure that he wouldn't get up (unless they got destroyed by the beam too). Two, he had moved locations. He was originally scaling up a giant hill with bunkers on it and now, he was in a giant forest. And finally, this place felt...different. He knew it sounded stupid, but this place didn't feel...right. It felt as if there was some sort of 'evil' watching him. He hadn't felt that feeling the whole time that he had been on the colony. Forgetting about the forest for a second, he checked to see if his comm's link was working. All that came back was static. He sighed. "Great. I can't even contact Elena. That's going to be a bitch." He turned around to see his weapon, the BLADE system, on the floor just a few inches from where he woke up. He went over to it, picked it up and tried to change weapon modes. He chuckled and smiled when it changed into a rocket launcher. "Glad to see that the BLADE system is still working. That will help if I run into anything what is a threat." He let the BLADE go into his suit. He really needed to check if the AR function in his suit was broken. If it was, he'd be fucked if anything came his way as it allowed him to intercept attacks and it even had saved his life a few times before. He wasted no time in evading to the side to try and activate AR mode. He was glad when it activated as everything went into slow motion. He de-activated it and grinned. "That's good news. Was worried that the energy beam or whatever it was might have broken it." He tried to de-activate his visor. It complied and revealed his face for a few seconds before he re-activated it. He had to be careful around this unkown place. His grin remained. "Great. Everything is functional." His grin suddenly vanished as he remembered what had happened to Burns. He got shot in both legs. He was carrying Burns to the exit when the energy wave hit them both. His normal expression turned into a sad and serious one. "I hope Burns is alright. If I made it out alive, I'm sure he has. Then again, I wasn't the one who got shot in both legs..." He tried to forget about it for now as he needed to focus on finding out where he was and how he could get back. Just as he started to walk forward, he heard a rustle in tree's above him. He looked up as his weapon came out of his suit and materialised into his hand. He changed it to its assault rifle form. Before he could say or do anything, he heard the rustling again, but it was closer this time. After what had happened, Sam honestly thought nothing would surprise him. He was proved wrong as 4 equine looking beings came out of the tree's and dropped onto the ground. They looked at him in bewilderment. They had golden clad armor on and spears. They all had the same helmets on, which looked like an ancient Roman's helmet. He noticed that one had a horn, one had wings and one had neither a horn or wings. They raised their spears towards him and shot a serious stare his way. One of the horses attempted to get near him with his spear. "Creature, do not attempt to run. If you don't comply, we will be forced to restrain you." Sam flinched a bit at that. "Did that fucking colourful horse just talk to me?" When he didn't reply, it spoke again. "Can you understand me?" Sam's brain was still trying to register that a techni coloured horse just spoke to him in English. Twice. When he snapped back into reality, he just nodded in agreement. The horse got a bit closer than Sam was comfortable with. "Good. I'm guessing that if you can understand me, you can talk?" Sam just nodded again. "Then why don't you say something?" Sam snorted. "I don't really feel like talking to a bunch of colourful animals." The horse flinched at Sam talking and suddenly got an angry glare on its face. "Uh oh. I think I pissed it off." "Creature, we are not "animals". We are the Royal Guard that protects the princesses and you WILL refer to us as so. Understand?" Sam's BLADE system came out of his suit and turned into its assault rifle form. He pointed it at the guards face. "No fucking way am I going to be some weird horses bitch." His face also took on an angry glare, but due to his visor being activated, it wasn't able to be seen by the Equines. "I haven't got time for this." He aimed his weapon upwards and shot a few bullets, making the horses flinch and back off a bit. He took this as a chance to run into the woods as fast as his suit would let him, which was a bit faster than what the normal human could run at speed wise. He decided to dodge past the tree's constantly to try and confuse them. What he hadn't noticed however was the flying horses above him. "Welp, this is gunna be harder than I thought." After a while of constantly dodging barraging flying horses and tree's, he spotted an old building of some sort in the distance. From what he could see at this distance, some of it had fallen down, but some of it appeared to still be standing. "Think I found myself a hiding spot." But then he remembered that he had to get these flying ones off of his back first. If he went into the building now, they'd just follow him in. Although, the ones who were running after him had lost him a bit ago in the woods. He remembered when he looked back when he started running away earlier, one of the horses with the horns somehow lit his horn up, but nothing happened. "I wonder what it was trying to do..." An idea suddenly came into his head. Not a pleasant one, but he had to get away. "Sorry to do this to you horses, but it's the quickest way to get you off of my back." He turned to face the oncoming flying horses and evaded backwards onto his knees, activating AR mode. He aimed his weapon up at them and pumped a bullet or two into each horse's wings. He grinned when they fell down to the ground. He saw that they had been knocked out by what he guessed was either the pain or the fall. He checked them to see if they were alive and not bleeding badly. He wanted to get away from them, but he didn't want to kill them unless he had to. All of them were alive. He got his medical syringe out of his suit and used it to stop the bleeding. "I forgot to check if the syringe had been lost when I somehow got here. Thank god it wasn't. And thank you, DARPA. Whatever stuff you put into this, it sure as hell works." After that was sorted, he ran to the building in the distance, hoping that it was a good place to hide for a while until he figured out what to do next. Chapter 2 - The old castle"What? What do you mean it got away?" Celestia had arrived at the Everfree Forest with Lieutenant Steel Blade a few seconds ago and had expected to see the creature here with the guards surrounding it. What she found instead was a couple of guards sitting down talking, looking as if they'd seen a ghost and the creature was nowhere to be seen. A guard was currently telling her what had transpired there. "Well, your highness, we surrounded the creature quite fast. I decided to get close to it. I asked it if it could understand me and it nodded. I figured that if it could understand me, it could talk. I asked it if it could talk and it nodded again. I then asked it why it wasn't speaking if it could. Then, it said that it didn't feel like talking to a bunch of "colourful animals". I took offense to this and said in a stern fashion that we weren't animals and that we were the royal guard who protect the princesses. I think it got angered by this as a weird object came out of its body and it pointed it at me. It was what I presumed to be a weapon. It pointed it in the air and it made a very loud sound. We flinched back out of surprise and the creature seemed to take it as an opportunity to get away. It ended up running further into the woods and some pegasi guards followed it. One unicorn guard tried to stop the creature with his magic, but it wouldn't work." Celestia now had a confused expression on her face. "What do you mean his magic didn't work?" "I mean, your highness, that when he tried to use his magic on the creature, nothing happened. His horn glowed, but that was it. The creature didn't even notice it, I don't think." Before Celestia could say her reply to that, Steel Blade butted in. "That can't be true. No animal in the Everfree can withstand magic to the point where it doesn't even work on it at all." The guard looked at Steel Blade with a determined expression. "I'm not lying sir, I swear. I saw it with my own eyes." Steel Blade pondered on that for a moment. After a few seconds, he sighed and nodded. "Okay, I believe you. I guess. What's your name and rank?" The guard soluted. "Sir, I am private Mystic Bane, sir!" Steel Blade nodded. "Alright private. Thank you for the information. You're dismissed." "Yes sir. No problem sir!" The private galloped off back to his fellow guards. Celestia walked up to Steel Blade with a smirk. "I was going to say something before you spoke, Steel Blade." Steel Blade blushed and bowed. "Oh! I'm sorry, your highness. Is there anything I can do to..." He didn't get to finish his sentence as it was Celestia's turn to butt in. "Hush, my royal guard. I did not take offense. I am just teasing." The guard chuckled a bit at that. "Oh. Heh. Sorry, your highness." Celestia smiled and thought about what the private had said. She looked to Steel Blade with a serious expression. "Lieutenant Steel Blade, if that private was telling the truth, then this could be serious. A creature that isn't affected by magic at all is not exactly common. It's impossible, if you think about it, as magic is everywhere. Inside of every creature on this planet. He also said it had what appeared to be a weapon, which also isn't good. We have to find this creature and soon, before it hurts anypony. I don't know if that's its intention, but we can't be too sure." Steel Blade nodded. The princess was right. If this thing wasn't affected by magic and had a weapon of some sort, it could be dangerous. Very dangerous. "You're right as always, your highness. I shall round up these guards as they have seen it before. They might come in handy when we look for it." Celestia nodded and smiled. "A very good decision, my guard. Take care of everypony, including yourself. I will fly in the air and see if I can see anything in the far reaches of the Everfree." Steel Blade looked nervous, all of a sudden. "Princess, are you sure you want to do that? I can always have some pegasai guards fly to the far reaches of the.." Celestia suddenly had a stern, but grateful look on her face. "I am grateful that you worry about me, Steel Blade. But I will be fine. There is no need to send pegasai guards. I will do it myself. Stay safe, my guard." Steel Blade saluted and bowed as Celestia took off into the air. "You too, your highness." "I bet this place wasn''t too shabby when it wasn't falling apart." Sam had been in the building for an hour or two now. He didn't know. He didn't care. All he cared about was finding out where he was and how he could get back to providence. If he even could get back. When he had first gotten to the building from the woods, he guessed that it was some sort of old castle from the appearance. He also couldn't find a way in. The front door (or rather, big wooden wall as he called it) was locked, the back entrance was locked and there was nowhere else to get in. That's until he found a small entrance what used to be a wall. It had crumbled and fell down so much that it had made an opening. He knew that the horses would eventually find that entrance and get in, but he wasn't worried about that too much. He wasn't planning on staying in here long anyway. He took a look around the place for a while and was astounded by what he found. He saw paintings and robes on the walls. Most of them showed creatures. All of them looked like the weird horses he had encountered earlier, except these looked like royality. They had some sort of crown and regalia on. There were two different horses in the paintings and the robes. One was pure white, apart from the golden regalia it had on and it didn't have just wings or a horn. It had both. The other one was the same except it was a sort of dark blue colour, the regalia matched the colour of its coat and it was a bit shorter than the white one. It also had a horn and wings. "Interesting." They also had some horseshoes on. The white one had golden ones and the blue one had...dark blue ones on. "I can see that the shorter one had a thing for the colour blue. Hell, even its fur is blue." He chuckled to himself and then a thought popped into his head. "If I'm right and these two are some sort of royality, then these horses must have a government, a hierarchy or something along those lines." Sam eventually found, what he presumed to be, an old bed room. The bed was somehow still intact, even if it was dusty as hell. He decided that seen as no one was here yet, he'd have a quick nap. He deserved one after todays events. He lied down and slowly closed his eyes behind his helmet. "Let's hope that them horses don't find me while I'm taking a nap." Chapter 3 - What are you?"Mother of me, where is this creature? What does it want?" The thoughts that crowded Celestia's mind right now weren't good at all. This creature supposedly had a weapon and wasn't affected by magic at all. She didn't want to admit it, but the latter piece of information scared her a tad bit. Nothing could be TOTALLY resistant to magic...could it? The white alicorn had been flying over the Everfree for what seemed like hours, trying to spot the creature or anything related to it. The only thing she knew was that it was bipedal and had some sort of "advanced armour" on. It wasn't everyday that you'd see a bipedal creature with armour on in the Everfree. After about another hour of searching, Celestia was about to give up when she saw the old royal castle. She used to live there with Luna, mainly before her banishment. It'd crumbled and become decrepit. The plant life around here had grown all over it, covering it with moss and ivy. "Maybe I should check in there?" She doubted that the creature would be in there, but it was the only building in the Everfree. Even if it was decrepit, one could still hide in there if they wished. After thinking about it for a few seconds, Celestia landed just outside of the castle. She noticed that the entrance was still locked. "Good. The magical lock is still active. It should have stopped the wildlife from getting in." Seen as she was the one who put said lock onto the entrance, she could easily unlock it. As she pointed her horn at the entrance and disabled the lock spell, the entrance opened as she expected. She walked in and memories began flooding back to her. "I remember all of these robes..." The robes and paintings on the wall showing her and Luna made a few tears come from her eyes. After a few seconds of this, she heard a bang from the floor above her. "What was that?" She went to investigate, hoping that what caused that sound would be the creature they had all been looking for. Steel Blade and the guards who had originally seen the creature, or "monster" as they called it, had been looking for it for a good couple of hours now. They had hoped to find it quickly. They were wrong. "Alright my fellow guards, I think it's time to..." He was about to call the search off for tonight until he heard somepony screaming. "HELP!" Steel Blade and the other guards started running towards the screams and after a few minutes, he found who was screaming. "Oh buck..." What he saw startled and shocked him. There were a number of guards, about 3 or so, all pegasi, who had been injured. They looked as if something had penetrated their wings. "Guards! Check on those 2 over there! I'll get this one!" All the other guards saluted and went to do as the Lieutenant had said. He went over to see to a single Pegasi guard and checked his wings. "Can you hear me?" The guard nodded. "How many hooves am I holding up?" The guard looked at him. "2." The Lieutenant smiled a bit at that. "Good. At least he's not disorientated." He looked at the guard. "Do you know what happened to your wing, son?" The guard nodded. "I remember....a bit. We were chasing this....strange creature and we were about to fly down to capture it, but it moved incredibly fast. Faster than any bipedal creature should be able to move." The guard coughed and continued. "It turned to face us and rolled backwards, going onto its knee's. It then used its weapon against all of us with impossible speed. It was so fast that I didn't even see it use the weapon. All I know is that my wings had been injured and then I fell down to the ground. That's all I can remember." Steel Blade frowned. "Celestia..what have we found?" The Lieutenant got up and put on a fake smile to the injured guard. "Don't worry. We'll get you all of you to the hospital to get you patched up. There appears to be no bleeding, which is strange, but good. I have to go find the princess. I'll leave you in hands of these fellow guards." Steel Blade shouted to the guards and motioned them over to him. "I am going to find the princess. Take these injured guards and get them to the nearest hospital to get their wounds seen to." The guards saluted. "Yes sir!" He nodded at them and flew into the air. "I better find the princess soon so I can report this to her. Maybe she's even found the creature...hope she's alright if that's the case.." "Ugh...how did I manage to fall out of bed?" Sam expected to wake up and find himself staring at them weird horses he encountered yesterday. Instead, he was greeted with the floor. He rubbed his uncovered head and remembered something all of a sudden. He checked the inbuilt storage (he called them pockets like any human would) in the suit and sighed in relief when he found what he was looking for. "Shit. I'm glad I suddenly remembered about these. If I didn't have them, I might as well be dead already." He brought out a packet of ciggarettes and his lighter. He popped one into his mouth, flicked his lighter open, lit it and put it to the ciggarette. He calmly breathed out the smoke and grinned to himself. "I swear, these babies can fix any problem." His grin vanished when he heard the sound of someone walking upstairs...no...it sounded like something else... Trotting. He activated his helmet so that it covered his face and grabbed his weapon which was by the side of the bed. He quickly got up and pointed his weapon at the door. "I'm prepared for you motherfuckers..." Celestia was just outside of her old bedroom. She heard something moving about in there when she was climbing the stairs. She breathed in deeply. "Why am I so nervous? It might not even be anything..." She slowly opened the door and when she saw what was inside, she was shocked. It was, what she presumed to be, the creature that they'd all been searching for. It stood as nearly as tall as her. Maybe an inch or two off. She realised what her guard meant when he said "advanced" armour. It had a weird looking thing covering its entire head. She guessed it was some sort of helmet. Its entire body was covered in mostly white and a bit of black. The helmet covering its head was nearly all white as well, albeit a few tiny parts were black and a few lines covering it were an orange sort of colour. A blue part was on the lower part of the helmet, where she guessed the mouth would be. She also saw, what she presumed to be, its weapon. It was pointing it directly at her. She felt something that she hated. Fear. This was an unknown creature. For all she knew, it could kill her or harm her in an instant. She had no idea what it was capable of. She walked into the room a bit more and noticed the creature backed away a bit and put its weapon closer to it. "It's feeling threatned. I better say something..." She cleared her throat and spoke. "Hello..?" The creature kept its weapon raised at her, but it replied to her. "Hi." "Good. At least I know the private was telling the truth when he told me about it talking to them..." She stepped forward a tiny bit. "May I ask..." "What are you?" Chapter 4 - Talking to one anotherCelestia wasn't afraid to say that she was scared. Even though the creature wasn't attacking her, she still felt that it could do anytime it wished. If she was unprepared when it did... "Ahem!" Celestia was snapped out of her thoughts and saw that the creature was still pointing its weapon at her and said something. She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. I was lost in my own thoughts. What did you say?" The creature snorted.. "I said that I'm a human. You asked me what I was, correct? Now it's my turn to ask the same question to you." If anypony else would have talked to her like that with such bluntness, she would have been irritated. But, considering this was an unknown creature that she knew nothing about, she decided to just smile in response. "Oh. Where are my manners? I'm Princess Celestia. I'm an alicorn, which is why I have both a horn and wings. I rule over this country, Equestria, with my sister, Princess Luna. Please tell me, where do you come from?" The creature seemed sighed. "I come from a planet called "Earth". I already guessed that this isn't the same planet. Unless I somehow found a place on Earth where all of the population are talking horses." Celestia frowned a bit at the word "horses", but she guessed that the creature probably hadn't seen anything like them before, so she let it slide. "We are not horses, we are ponies. And no, this planet isn't called "Earth". It is called Equis." Sam just sighed again. It wasn't hard to tell that he wasn't on Earth anymore, but he still had some hope, even if he knew it wasn't true. But when the "pony" known as "Princess Celestia" confirmed that this wasn't Earth, his face put on a sad expression just for a moment. Thankfully, Princess Celestia didn't see it as he had his helmet still over his head completely. "Can't show weakness to these things, otherwise, they might act upon it. This one seems friendly enough, but you can never be too sure. Especially with creatures that are seem close to humans intelligence wise..." "Yeah, as I said, I guessed that this wasn't Earth. So, "Princess Celestia", what happens now? Believe it or not, even though to you, I might look like I want to hurt you, I really don't. I only hurt things that are attempting to hurt me and you do not look like you want to. And I assume if you did want to, you would have already tried. The only things that I've hurt so far on this planet are a few flying hors....ponies with armour on." He lowered his weapon a bit. He noticed that Princess Celestia gasped when he mentioned hurting the ponies with armour on. "You said that they had armour on? Why did you hurt them?" "Because they were trying to attack me. I imagine that it was because of me being something that they'd never seen before or something, but I still had to defend myself." He looked at Celestia and saw a flash of anger in her eyes. He raised his weapon again and pointed it at her, just in case. He didn't want another angry pony trying to kill him. Celestia waved her hoof at him. "Calm down. I am not going to hurt you. I admit, it has made me a tad bit mad to hear that you have hurt some of my royal guard, BUT, I know that you were only doing it in self defense and that you were probably just frightened. You said that you've never seen a pony before, correct?" Sam nodded. "Well, we have ponies back on Earth, but they're nothing like you. They can't talk, they don't have horns or wings and they certainly don't have armour on. They are basically animals. But you...your eyes and the other ponies eyes that I have seen so far are disturbingly...human." Celestia nodded as well. "Seen as you hurt them in self defense, I will not put charges against you. But, I hope that none of them have been killed by your actions. If they have, it might be a bit more...complicated." Sam snorted at that. "I can't help if I killed them. I'm sorry if I did, but I only did it to protect myself. Anyway, when they were unconcious, I gave them a dose of my medical syringe. It stopped the bleeding, so they should be fine. So long as someone finds them." Celestia shifted a bit closer to him, which made him raise his weapon more. She put her hooves up. "Relax. You should know by now that I am not going to hurt you. You said that you gave them a medical syringe? What was in it, exactly?" Sam sighed, lowered his weapon a bit and nodded. "It has adrenaline in it. I don't know what the other stuff is that's in it, but what I do know is that it can save lives. It's a miracle that it stops someone bleeding to death if they're wounded." He saw Celestia smile a bit at that. "Thank you for at least trying to make sure that they wouldn't die from their wounds, even if you inflicted them yourself. And I understand that it was in self defense." Celestia tapped her hoof against her head and gasped as if she had just remembered something important. "Oh my, where are my manners? I've told you my name, but I never asked for yours. What is your name and I'm guessing you're a male due to your voice and stature, yes?" Sam nodded. "Yup. I'm a male human. My name is Sam Gideon, but just call me Sam." Celestia smiled. "Thank you for telling me your name, Sam. Now, if you don't mind, could we continue this conversation at the castle where I stay with my sister? Do not worry. You will not be interrogated or anything, I only wish to get to know you more and ask you a few questions. You do not seem like you want to hurt anypony on purpose if you don't have to. Is that okay with you?" Sam lowered his weapon and tapped his head in thought. "I still don't trust these "ponies", but what choice do I have? I can't radio Elena or Burns and I don't know what's on this planet. I wouldn't know where to go if I ran off or anything, anyway. Guess I have no choice..." Sam nodded at Celestia. "I guess I have no choice. Thank you for being understanding and kind, considering that I hurt some of your guard ponies." She smiled. "That is good. Thank you for cooperating. Shall we go?" Sam nodded. "Lead on, Princess." She nodded back at him, turned around and walked out of the old bedroom and Sam walked behind her. He frowned inside his helmet. "Hope this doesn't go as bad as my last encounter with these ponies..." Chapter 5 - Screwing things upSam walked out of the old castle and followed Celestia. He was still cautious of her, but he couldn't really do much about it. If she wanted to kill him, she probably would have already tried it by now. "And she was pretty nice to me considering that I shot some of her guards..." When they got outside, he noticed that Celestia's horn was glowing. "Wait...one of the guard ponies from earlier did that to...what if it's some sort of weapon?" Sam wasn't taking any chances and raised his weapon up at her once more. He shouted her name to get her attention and as soon as her name escaped his lips, she looked at him. Shock spread across her face. "Sam, what are you doing? Why are you pointing that....weapon at me?" She took a step back and her horn started glowing even more now. She had to try and defend herself if he was going to do anything to attempt to harm her. "Sam...put that thing away. I don't want to hurt you, but I will defend myself if you try to harm me." He kept his weapon held up at her. "Why the fuck was your horn glowing?" Celestia was now sweating a bit. Her nerves had gotten the better of her. "Why am I so scared of him? I can defend myself....but...I still don't know what he's capable of or if my magic would even affect him..." She finally answered his question after what seemed like hours. "I was sending a message to Steel Blade. He's a Lieutenant in the royal guard." Sam still held his weapon up to her. "What if she's telling the truth, though? I'd be killing an innocent pony princess because I thought she was trying to kill me with her horn...then again...it's still a possibility. I have no idea what these things are capable of." He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard something coming towards him. He looked up and saw an armoured pony. Before it could barrel into his chest, he dodged out of the way. He turned around and shot at the pony that had just missed him. A bullet hit one of its wings and it came crashing down. Celestia gasped. "No...Steel Blade..." He heard a twig snap behind him. He spun back around to see Celestia. But, he could tell she wasn't happy with him right now. Her eyes looked as if they were full of fire. He raised his weapon and pointed it at her again. "I don't want to hurt you, Celestia. Back off." Celestia was fuming right now. Not only had her hurt some of her royal guards earlier (even though it was in self defense, she still had to retain her anger earlier when hearing about it), he'd just injured one of her Lieutenants, Steel Blade, right in front of her. She stomped her hoof on the ground. "SAM. YOU ARE TO NOT HURT HIM ANY FURTHER OR I WILL HAVE TO RESTRAIN YOU!" He stared at her under his helmet with a scowl on his face. "Listen, he nearly came flying into me. For no fucking reason. What do you expect me to do? Let him charge into me?" Celestia was going to attempt to use a paralysing spell on him, until she realised what was more important right now. She looked behind him to see Steel Blade unconscious, but breathing. "Thank Equestria....he's not dead...but I need to get him to a hospital. Fast." She walked past Sam and walked up to Steel Blade. Her horn glowed and she sent a message to her other royal guards that were currently in the Everfree. About 20 seconds later, a chariot came down. 2 winged ponies were at each side, supporting it. Sam had lowered his weapon by now, but was keeping it gripped firmly in his hand. He didn't want to let his guard down. The next thing what happened baffled him. Celestia picked up the injured winged pony with nothing. Literally nothing. All that he could see was a glow around the injured pony. She put him in the chariot gently. He noticed that Celestia's horn had the same glow emitting from it. He put it together piece by piece. "Shit, she can levitate things? I'm guessing that's what the guard from earlier was trying to do to me when I saw his horn glowing. I wonder why he couldn't pull it off, though..." Celestia was now talking to the other guard ponies who had come in with the chariot. "Get him to the nearest hospital, asap. As soon as you do, come back here with the chariot and I will escort the.....creature....to the castle." The two guards saluted and went back to the sides of the chariot, attached themselves to it via a leash sort of thing and pulled it into the air. They had gone by the time Celestia had walked back up to Sam. She looked at him with.....disappointment? "You didn't have to do that, you know." Sam was more confused than anything else right now. And annoyed at the same time. "Yes, I did. He was attempting to harm me. I can't allow that." She scowled at him. "Listen, I understand that you hurt some of my guards earlier in self defense and you did the same now, but I don't want any more harm to come to my subjects. You're lucky that I can hold in my anger so well. If I couldn't, I wouldn't have been so nice with you. Just don't hurt any more of my subjects. Because, if you do, I will have to take matters into my own hooves. Do you understand?" Sam was about to gob off at her when he remembered something. "I can't do anything towards her right now. If I do, then I've fucked my chances with the only creature that might be able to help me. If I'm going to survive while I'm here, I need to play it cool. Can't fuck things up between me and Celestia now, otherwise, I'll probably never get off of this damn planet." He looked at her with flash of anger in his eyes, but as fast as it came, it was gone. He looked at her with a neutral expression. "I understand. I am sorry for bringing harm to your ponies, even if it was in self defense." She was still incredibly annoyed at him, but she managed to keep a neutral expression. She sighed. "Good. I don't want to have to hurt you, Sam. Now, come on. Our chariot will be here any minute." He sighed. "That could have gone a lot fucking better..."
Chapter 1 - Flung into the unknownHumanity was facing a very common challenge. Surviving. Earth had gotten over populated with humans and because of that, starvation eventually kicked in. Different countries had a different number of casualties, but the highest death count due to starvation currently belonged to Russia. As the Russians were starving and were therefor, in a state of crisis, a terrorist group known as "The Russian Star" took over Russia's military forces and stole all their technology, weapons and equipment. When they seized all the power in Russia, they wanted more. That's when they turned their eyes to the newly built American colony, Providence. It was originally built to help the US as it was getting over populated. The same as every country on Earth. Because of its energy designs, they figured it was possible to use it as a weapon of mass destruction. They finally accomplished this when they sent their troops or rather, R.I's, to take the colony. Nobody knows how many civilians got evacuated or got killed. They attacked too fast for anyone to anticipate. Eventually, they did use it as a weapon of mass destruction. It was used on San Fransisco and killed thousands of people. Maybe even more. No one really knows to this date. After they had used it, the supposed 'leader' of this terrorist group contacted the president to tell her that if America didn't surrender, he would use his new found weapon again. On New York. The president took Colonel Robert Burns, a war veteran, and put him in charge of a task force called Bravo Company. DARPA also offered to help by sending one of their researchers, me, Sam Gideon. I was sent to help Bravo Company retake Providence and to stop the terrorist group using the weapon of mass destruction on New York. Originally, I thought that this would be a walk in the park. Take out a few dozen R.I's, get to the manual control panel in the control room at the center of the colony and deactivate the weapon. Boy, did I think wrong. Providence colony. 1300 hours. "You have R.I's closing in on your position!" Sam tossed the remains of his cigarette away and peeked around a corner, only to have bullets miss him by an inch as he quickly put his head back into cover. "FUCK! I can't reach the gate. Elena, hack it!" "I can't Sam. They've put analogue locks on it. You're going to have to blow that gate up." Sam sighed and looked towards the commanding officer of the squad he was helping, Lieutenant Colonel Burns. "Nothing's ever easy, is it?" Burns snorted and rolled out of cover, shooting the R.I's who were closing in on them. "If it was easy, we'd have already done it." A shower of bullets nearly hit Sam in the face as he activated the boosters in his suit and slid to another piece of cover. Once he was satisfied that he was in an unflankable position, he started firing all of his bullets into the never ending stampede of R.I's. He must have shot 10, 20, 40, even 70. But they just kept coming. "Jesus mother of shit! How many of these damn robots are there?!" Burns grunted and rolled over to Sam's position, barely missing another barrage of bullets. He peeked over cover and started spraying the incoming robots with his minigun. Every time he destroyed one, another one replaced it. It was like there was an infinite amount of them. He put his minigun down by his side and brought his head back down. "Fuck knows. Doesn't matter how many there is. Just more shit to kill." Sam snorted and threw a grenade into the oncoming storm of R.I's. Its blast radius took out quite a few dozen R.I's, but that didn't stop them. Not one bit. Sam looked anywhere and everywhere for an exit. If they stayed here, they'd be dead in a couple of minutes. He believed in the term "take one for the team", but he didn't particularly feel like dying. Not yet, anyway. After about 40 seconds of trying to spot an exit, he saw one just behind them. It was a door behind one of the bunkers. A few meters away. He tapped Burns on the shoulder and he turned around to look at Sam with an expression that said "The fuck do you want?" Sam pointed to the exit. "Burns. We've gotta retreat to that door over there!" Burns didn't like the idea of retreating. He always thought retreating or surrendering was for pussies. But, Sam was right. If they stayed here much longer, they'd probably get killed very quickly. After a few seconds of thought, Burns nodded and motioned for Sam to lead the way. Sam slid over to the exit, avoiding bullets, missiles and lasers on the way. "FUCK. FUCK. SHIT!" One missile flew over his head as he made it to the exit. He turned to face Burns and the rest of Bravo Company. The next thing he knew, Burns was running as fast as he could to him. When he was about to make it, a stray bullet hit his leg, causing him to fall face flat. "BURNS!" The rest of bravo company were getting slaughtered as Sam rushed over to Burns and tried to help him up. "Come on Burns. Get up!" He put his arm around Burns and tried to help him to the exit. For a second, Sam had forgotten about the masses of robots behind him and all the bullets that were flying past him. That was until one hit Burns in the other leg, causing him to scream out in pain and fall down onto one knee. Sam got him back on his feet as fast as he could. "Come on Burns. You can make it!" As he came closer to the door, he heard something behind him. He turned around to see a giant wave of energy coming his way, destroying everything in its path. "Oh bollocks. That's not good..." He moved as fast as he could to the door, still having his arm around Burns. As he got to the door and was just about to open it, the energy wave hit both him and Burns. The next thing he knew, he was in extreme pain. It felt as if his blood was molten lava and it was burning through his skin. Before he could even attempt to let out a scream, blackness took him as he passed out. The sun outside was shining down on the land of Equestria. The controller of said sun, Princess Celestia, was in her throne room, reading letters from worried ponies. They were mostly complaints concerning Luna's return as many ponies were worried that she might still be Nightmare Moon. Celestia had replied telling them that it was nonsense to think that Luna was even remotely evil anymore, but they wouldn't have any of it. Some had even gone out of their way to protest. That was the one thing that got Celestia annoyed. Only slightly, however. She sighed as she threw the current letter that she was reading to the side of her. "I really need a break." Celestia loved ruling her subjects. It wasn't that she wanted a break from THEM. She just wanted to have nothing to deal with for just one day. But, something ALWAYS happened in Equestria. it was either something as bad as Discord escaping his prison or something as tiny as Twilight forgetting to send her a friendship report and then said mare would freak out, making it worse. Before she could pick up another letter, the door to her royal throne room burst open. One of her royal guards appeared in the doorway as he quickly ran up to her. He bowed. "Your highness. I have some important news." As he got up, he noticed that the princess started waving a hoof. "At ease, my royal guard. What news do you have for me?" She gave him a serious but sincere look. "Thank you, princess. Some ponies reported seeing something in the outskirts of Canterlot, near the exit of the Everfree Forest. We didn't believe what they described at first, but we sent a couple of guards to scout around. They came back and had a look of fear and shock on their face. We asked them what they had found and...well..they said that they saw an unconscious...creature of some sort. They said that it was a bipedal, alien looking....thing. It had some sort of advanced armor on. That's what they presumed, anyway." Celestia's face was filled with shock and surprise. If it was an..alien, this would be their first contact with another species. Well, another species from a different planet. And that's even if it was from somewhere else. She had to check this out before making any assumptions. She stood up from her throne quickly and went over to the guard who was now cowering in fear. Celestia noticed this and plastered a warm smile onto her face. "I'm sorry if I startled you, my guard. But if this is as you explained, then it is very important that I go and 'inspect' this creature myself. It could be a species that we have never seen before. You said it was unconscious, correct?" The guard nodded. "Yes, your highness." She gave him another serious look that made him feel uncomfortable. "Is it safe? The Everfree Forest can be a dangerous place, as we all know what creatures live there." The guard nodded again. "Yes, your highness. After the scouts reported this to me, I sent a squad of royal guards to the area where the scouts had spotted this creature to make sure that no creatures attempt to harm it or it doesn't attempt to harm anything or anypony when and if it awakes. Celestia nodded. "That's good. Thank you, my guard. Oh, where are my manners. What is your name?" The guard waved a hoof dismissively. "No worries, your highness. My name is Steel Blade. I'm a Lieutenant." Celestia walked closer to him and smiled. "Well then, Lieutenant Blade, do you mind if I come with you to meet this creature? I would at least like to try and ask it a few questions, when it's awake, if it can speak." The guard shook his head. "Of course I don't mind, your highness. Follow me." And with that, the princess of the sun went off with her royal guard to find what could be something that might go down in Equestrian history. The sounds of birds and wind could be heard as a certain bipedal super soldier woke up. "Ugh...what happened? Where am I?..." Sam put his hand to his head to try and stop the headache that had just come on. Well, you could call it a headache, but a better term would be a giant elephant jumping up and down inside your head thinking that your brain is a soft bed. After a few seconds, the memories came flooding back to him. The R.I's, Burns getting shot and most importantly, the energy wave that had knocked him out. And the overwhelming pain that he had experienced just before he passed out. "What was that energy wave anyway? What did it do to me..." He sat up and looked around. He saw nothing but tree's and grass. "That's strange...I wasn't anywhere near the colony's residential garden and that has buildings in it. This place looks like a dark, desolate forest." He mentally shrugged and stood up onto his feet. He was surprised at how easy he got up considering the immense amount of pain he had gone through not long ago. "Right...I need to check that all of me is in one piece. Head? Check. Both legs? Check. Both arms? Check." He moved his arms and legs to check that they were functioning alright. He smiled inside his helmet when they complied. "That's good. At least my limbs AND the suit is working." He wanted to test to see if the boosters in his suit were still working properly. He instantly slid over to the tree in front of him. He smirked. "Right. Boosters are working fine. That should come in handy if I encounter anything in this place. Then again...I don't even know if I'm still on the colony." It seemed highly illogical that he was on the colony anymore. First of all, he would have probably been shot to death when he passed out by the R.I's to make sure that he wouldn't get up (unless they got destroyed by the beam too). Two, he had moved locations. He was originally scaling up a giant hill with bunkers on it and now, he was in a giant forest. And finally, this place felt...different. He knew it sounded stupid, but this place didn't feel...right. It felt as if there was some sort of 'evil' watching him. He hadn't felt that feeling the whole time that he had been on the colony. Forgetting about the forest for a second, he checked to see if his comm's link was working. All that came back was static. He sighed. "Great. I can't even contact Elena. That's going to be a bitch." He turned around to see his weapon, the BLADE system, on the floor just a few inches from where he woke up. He went over to it, picked it up and tried to change weapon modes. He chuckled and smiled when it changed into a rocket launcher. "Glad to see that the BLADE system is still working. That will help if I run into anything what is a threat." He let the BLADE go into his suit. He really needed to check if the AR function in his suit was broken. If it was, he'd be fucked if anything came his way as it allowed him to intercept attacks and it even had saved his life a few times before. He wasted no time in evading to the side to try and activate AR mode. He was glad when it activated as everything went into slow motion. He de-activated it and grinned. "That's good news. Was worried that the energy beam or whatever it was might have broken it." He tried to de-activate his visor. It complied and revealed his face for a few seconds before he re-activated it. He had to be careful around this unkown place. His grin remained. "Great. Everything is functional." His grin suddenly vanished as he remembered what had happened to Burns. He got shot in both legs. He was carrying Burns to the exit when the energy wave hit them both. His normal expression turned into a sad and serious one. "I hope Burns is alright. If I made it out alive, I'm sure he has. Then again, I wasn't the one who got shot in both legs..." He tried to forget about it for now as he needed to focus on finding out where he was and how he could get back. Just as he started to walk forward, he heard a rustle in tree's above him. He looked up as his weapon came out of his suit and materialised into his hand. He changed it to its assault rifle form. Before he could say or do anything, he heard the rustling again, but it was closer this time. After what had happened, Sam honestly thought nothing would surprise him. He was proved wrong as 4 equine looking beings came out of the tree's and dropped onto the ground. They looked at him in bewilderment. They had golden clad armor on and spears. They all had the same helmets on, which looked like an ancient Roman's helmet. He noticed that one had a horn, one had wings and one had neither a horn or wings. They raised their spears towards him and shot a serious stare his way. One of the horses attempted to get near him with his spear. "Creature, do not attempt to run. If you don't comply, we will be forced to restrain you." Sam flinched a bit at that. "Did that fucking colourful horse just talk to me?" When he didn't reply, it spoke again. "Can you understand me?" Sam's brain was still trying to register that a techni coloured horse just spoke to him in English. Twice. When he snapped back into reality, he just nodded in agreement. The horse got a bit closer than Sam was comfortable with. "Good. I'm guessing that if you can understand me, you can talk?" Sam just nodded again. "Then why don't you say something?" Sam snorted. "I don't really feel like talking to a bunch of colourful animals." The horse flinched at Sam talking and suddenly got an angry glare on its face. "Uh oh. I think I pissed it off." "Creature, we are not "animals". We are the Royal Guard that protects the princesses and you WILL refer to us as so. Understand?" Sam's BLADE system came out of his suit and turned into its assault rifle form. He pointed it at the guards face. "No fucking way am I going to be some weird horses bitch." His face also took on an angry glare, but due to his visor being activated, it wasn't able to be seen by the Equines. "I haven't got time for this." He aimed his weapon upwards and shot a few bullets, making the horses flinch and back off a bit. He took this as a chance to run into the woods as fast as his suit would let him, which was a bit faster than what the normal human could run at speed wise. He decided to dodge past the tree's constantly to try and confuse them. What he hadn't noticed however was the flying horses above him. "Welp, this is gunna be harder than I thought." After a while of constantly dodging barraging flying horses and tree's, he spotted an old building of some sort in the distance. From what he could see at this distance, some of it had fallen down, but some of it appeared to still be standing. "Think I found myself a hiding spot." But then he remembered that he had to get these flying ones off of his back first. If he went into the building now, they'd just follow him in. Although, the ones who were running after him had lost him a bit ago in the woods. He remembered when he looked back when he started running away earlier, one of the horses with the horns somehow lit his horn up, but nothing happened. "I wonder what it was trying to do..." An idea suddenly came into his head. Not a pleasant one, but he had to get away. "Sorry to do this to you horses, but it's the quickest way to get you off of my back." He turned to face the oncoming flying horses and evaded backwards onto his knees, activating AR mode. He aimed his weapon up at them and pumped a bullet or two into each horse's wings. He grinned when they fell down to the ground. He saw that they had been knocked out by what he guessed was either the pain or the fall. He checked them to see if they were alive and not bleeding badly. He wanted to get away from them, but he didn't want to kill them unless he had to. All of them were alive. He got his medical syringe out of his suit and used it to stop the bleeding. "I forgot to check if the syringe had been lost when I somehow got here. Thank god it wasn't. And thank you, DARPA. Whatever stuff you put into this, it sure as hell works." After that was sorted, he ran to the building in the distance, hoping that it was a good place to hide for a while until he figured out what to do next.
Chapter 2 - The old castle"What? What do you mean it got away?" Celestia had arrived at the Everfree Forest with Lieutenant Steel Blade a few seconds ago and had expected to see the creature here with the guards surrounding it. What she found instead was a couple of guards sitting down talking, looking as if they'd seen a ghost and the creature was nowhere to be seen. A guard was currently telling her what had transpired there. "Well, your highness, we surrounded the creature quite fast. I decided to get close to it. I asked it if it could understand me and it nodded. I figured that if it could understand me, it could talk. I asked it if it could talk and it nodded again. I then asked it why it wasn't speaking if it could. Then, it said that it didn't feel like talking to a bunch of "colourful animals". I took offense to this and said in a stern fashion that we weren't animals and that we were the royal guard who protect the princesses. I think it got angered by this as a weird object came out of its body and it pointed it at me. It was what I presumed to be a weapon. It pointed it in the air and it made a very loud sound. We flinched back out of surprise and the creature seemed to take it as an opportunity to get away. It ended up running further into the woods and some pegasi guards followed it. One unicorn guard tried to stop the creature with his magic, but it wouldn't work." Celestia now had a confused expression on her face. "What do you mean his magic didn't work?" "I mean, your highness, that when he tried to use his magic on the creature, nothing happened. His horn glowed, but that was it. The creature didn't even notice it, I don't think." Before Celestia could say her reply to that, Steel Blade butted in. "That can't be true. No animal in the Everfree can withstand magic to the point where it doesn't even work on it at all." The guard looked at Steel Blade with a determined expression. "I'm not lying sir, I swear. I saw it with my own eyes." Steel Blade pondered on that for a moment. After a few seconds, he sighed and nodded. "Okay, I believe you. I guess. What's your name and rank?" The guard soluted. "Sir, I am private Mystic Bane, sir!" Steel Blade nodded. "Alright private. Thank you for the information. You're dismissed." "Yes sir. No problem sir!" The private galloped off back to his fellow guards. Celestia walked up to Steel Blade with a smirk. "I was going to say something before you spoke, Steel Blade." Steel Blade blushed and bowed. "Oh! I'm sorry, your highness. Is there anything I can do to..." He didn't get to finish his sentence as it was Celestia's turn to butt in. "Hush, my royal guard. I did not take offense. I am just teasing." The guard chuckled a bit at that. "Oh. Heh. Sorry, your highness." Celestia smiled and thought about what the private had said. She looked to Steel Blade with a serious expression. "Lieutenant Steel Blade, if that private was telling the truth, then this could be serious. A creature that isn't affected by magic at all is not exactly common. It's impossible, if you think about it, as magic is everywhere. Inside of every creature on this planet. He also said it had what appeared to be a weapon, which also isn't good. We have to find this creature and soon, before it hurts anypony. I don't know if that's its intention, but we can't be too sure." Steel Blade nodded. The princess was right. If this thing wasn't affected by magic and had a weapon of some sort, it could be dangerous. Very dangerous. "You're right as always, your highness. I shall round up these guards as they have seen it before. They might come in handy when we look for it." Celestia nodded and smiled. "A very good decision, my guard. Take care of everypony, including yourself. I will fly in the air and see if I can see anything in the far reaches of the Everfree." Steel Blade looked nervous, all of a sudden. "Princess, are you sure you want to do that? I can always have some pegasai guards fly to the far reaches of the.." Celestia suddenly had a stern, but grateful look on her face. "I am grateful that you worry about me, Steel Blade. But I will be fine. There is no need to send pegasai guards. I will do it myself. Stay safe, my guard." Steel Blade saluted and bowed as Celestia took off into the air. "You too, your highness." "I bet this place wasn''t too shabby when it wasn't falling apart." Sam had been in the building for an hour or two now. He didn't know. He didn't care. All he cared about was finding out where he was and how he could get back to providence. If he even could get back. When he had first gotten to the building from the woods, he guessed that it was some sort of old castle from the appearance. He also couldn't find a way in. The front door (or rather, big wooden wall as he called it) was locked, the back entrance was locked and there was nowhere else to get in. That's until he found a small entrance what used to be a wall. It had crumbled and fell down so much that it had made an opening. He knew that the horses would eventually find that entrance and get in, but he wasn't worried about that too much. He wasn't planning on staying in here long anyway. He took a look around the place for a while and was astounded by what he found. He saw paintings and robes on the walls. Most of them showed creatures. All of them looked like the weird horses he had encountered earlier, except these looked like royality. They had some sort of crown and regalia on. There were two different horses in the paintings and the robes. One was pure white, apart from the golden regalia it had on and it didn't have just wings or a horn. It had both. The other one was the same except it was a sort of dark blue colour, the regalia matched the colour of its coat and it was a bit shorter than the white one. It also had a horn and wings. "Interesting." They also had some horseshoes on. The white one had golden ones and the blue one had...dark blue ones on. "I can see that the shorter one had a thing for the colour blue. Hell, even its fur is blue." He chuckled to himself and then a thought popped into his head. "If I'm right and these two are some sort of royality, then these horses must have a government, a hierarchy or something along those lines." Sam eventually found, what he presumed to be, an old bed room. The bed was somehow still intact, even if it was dusty as hell. He decided that seen as no one was here yet, he'd have a quick nap. He deserved one after todays events. He lied down and slowly closed his eyes behind his helmet. "Let's hope that them horses don't find me while I'm taking a nap."
Chapter 3 - What are you?"Mother of me, where is this creature? What does it want?" The thoughts that crowded Celestia's mind right now weren't good at all. This creature supposedly had a weapon and wasn't affected by magic at all. She didn't want to admit it, but the latter piece of information scared her a tad bit. Nothing could be TOTALLY resistant to magic...could it? The white alicorn had been flying over the Everfree for what seemed like hours, trying to spot the creature or anything related to it. The only thing she knew was that it was bipedal and had some sort of "advanced armour" on. It wasn't everyday that you'd see a bipedal creature with armour on in the Everfree. After about another hour of searching, Celestia was about to give up when she saw the old royal castle. She used to live there with Luna, mainly before her banishment. It'd crumbled and become decrepit. The plant life around here had grown all over it, covering it with moss and ivy. "Maybe I should check in there?" She doubted that the creature would be in there, but it was the only building in the Everfree. Even if it was decrepit, one could still hide in there if they wished. After thinking about it for a few seconds, Celestia landed just outside of the castle. She noticed that the entrance was still locked. "Good. The magical lock is still active. It should have stopped the wildlife from getting in." Seen as she was the one who put said lock onto the entrance, she could easily unlock it. As she pointed her horn at the entrance and disabled the lock spell, the entrance opened as she expected. She walked in and memories began flooding back to her. "I remember all of these robes..." The robes and paintings on the wall showing her and Luna made a few tears come from her eyes. After a few seconds of this, she heard a bang from the floor above her. "What was that?" She went to investigate, hoping that what caused that sound would be the creature they had all been looking for. Steel Blade and the guards who had originally seen the creature, or "monster" as they called it, had been looking for it for a good couple of hours now. They had hoped to find it quickly. They were wrong. "Alright my fellow guards, I think it's time to..." He was about to call the search off for tonight until he heard somepony screaming. "HELP!" Steel Blade and the other guards started running towards the screams and after a few minutes, he found who was screaming. "Oh buck..." What he saw startled and shocked him. There were a number of guards, about 3 or so, all pegasi, who had been injured. They looked as if something had penetrated their wings. "Guards! Check on those 2 over there! I'll get this one!" All the other guards saluted and went to do as the Lieutenant had said. He went over to see to a single Pegasi guard and checked his wings. "Can you hear me?" The guard nodded. "How many hooves am I holding up?" The guard looked at him. "2." The Lieutenant smiled a bit at that. "Good. At least he's not disorientated." He looked at the guard. "Do you know what happened to your wing, son?" The guard nodded. "I remember....a bit. We were chasing this....strange creature and we were about to fly down to capture it, but it moved incredibly fast. Faster than any bipedal creature should be able to move." The guard coughed and continued. "It turned to face us and rolled backwards, going onto its knee's. It then used its weapon against all of us with impossible speed. It was so fast that I didn't even see it use the weapon. All I know is that my wings had been injured and then I fell down to the ground. That's all I can remember." Steel Blade frowned. "Celestia..what have we found?" The Lieutenant got up and put on a fake smile to the injured guard. "Don't worry. We'll get you all of you to the hospital to get you patched up. There appears to be no bleeding, which is strange, but good. I have to go find the princess. I'll leave you in hands of these fellow guards." Steel Blade shouted to the guards and motioned them over to him. "I am going to find the princess. Take these injured guards and get them to the nearest hospital to get their wounds seen to." The guards saluted. "Yes sir!" He nodded at them and flew into the air. "I better find the princess soon so I can report this to her. Maybe she's even found the creature...hope she's alright if that's the case.." "Ugh...how did I manage to fall out of bed?" Sam expected to wake up and find himself staring at them weird horses he encountered yesterday. Instead, he was greeted with the floor. He rubbed his uncovered head and remembered something all of a sudden. He checked the inbuilt storage (he called them pockets like any human would) in the suit and sighed in relief when he found what he was looking for. "Shit. I'm glad I suddenly remembered about these. If I didn't have them, I might as well be dead already." He brought out a packet of ciggarettes and his lighter. He popped one into his mouth, flicked his lighter open, lit it and put it to the ciggarette. He calmly breathed out the smoke and grinned to himself. "I swear, these babies can fix any problem." His grin vanished when he heard the sound of someone walking upstairs...no...it sounded like something else... Trotting. He activated his helmet so that it covered his face and grabbed his weapon which was by the side of the bed. He quickly got up and pointed his weapon at the door. "I'm prepared for you motherfuckers..." Celestia was just outside of her old bedroom. She heard something moving about in there when she was climbing the stairs. She breathed in deeply. "Why am I so nervous? It might not even be anything..." She slowly opened the door and when she saw what was inside, she was shocked. It was, what she presumed to be, the creature that they'd all been searching for. It stood as nearly as tall as her. Maybe an inch or two off. She realised what her guard meant when he said "advanced" armour. It had a weird looking thing covering its entire head. She guessed it was some sort of helmet. Its entire body was covered in mostly white and a bit of black. The helmet covering its head was nearly all white as well, albeit a few tiny parts were black and a few lines covering it were an orange sort of colour. A blue part was on the lower part of the helmet, where she guessed the mouth would be. She also saw, what she presumed to be, its weapon. It was pointing it directly at her. She felt something that she hated. Fear. This was an unknown creature. For all she knew, it could kill her or harm her in an instant. She had no idea what it was capable of. She walked into the room a bit more and noticed the creature backed away a bit and put its weapon closer to it. "It's feeling threatned. I better say something..." She cleared her throat and spoke. "Hello..?" The creature kept its weapon raised at her, but it replied to her. "Hi." "Good. At least I know the private was telling the truth when he told me about it talking to them..." She stepped forward a tiny bit. "May I ask..." "What are you?"
Chapter 4 - Talking to one anotherCelestia wasn't afraid to say that she was scared. Even though the creature wasn't attacking her, she still felt that it could do anytime it wished. If she was unprepared when it did... "Ahem!" Celestia was snapped out of her thoughts and saw that the creature was still pointing its weapon at her and said something. She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. I was lost in my own thoughts. What did you say?" The creature snorted.. "I said that I'm a human. You asked me what I was, correct? Now it's my turn to ask the same question to you." If anypony else would have talked to her like that with such bluntness, she would have been irritated. But, considering this was an unknown creature that she knew nothing about, she decided to just smile in response. "Oh. Where are my manners? I'm Princess Celestia. I'm an alicorn, which is why I have both a horn and wings. I rule over this country, Equestria, with my sister, Princess Luna. Please tell me, where do you come from?" The creature seemed sighed. "I come from a planet called "Earth". I already guessed that this isn't the same planet. Unless I somehow found a place on Earth where all of the population are talking horses." Celestia frowned a bit at the word "horses", but she guessed that the creature probably hadn't seen anything like them before, so she let it slide. "We are not horses, we are ponies. And no, this planet isn't called "Earth". It is called Equis." Sam just sighed again. It wasn't hard to tell that he wasn't on Earth anymore, but he still had some hope, even if he knew it wasn't true. But when the "pony" known as "Princess Celestia" confirmed that this wasn't Earth, his face put on a sad expression just for a moment. Thankfully, Princess Celestia didn't see it as he had his helmet still over his head completely. "Can't show weakness to these things, otherwise, they might act upon it. This one seems friendly enough, but you can never be too sure. Especially with creatures that are seem close to humans intelligence wise..." "Yeah, as I said, I guessed that this wasn't Earth. So, "Princess Celestia", what happens now? Believe it or not, even though to you, I might look like I want to hurt you, I really don't. I only hurt things that are attempting to hurt me and you do not look like you want to. And I assume if you did want to, you would have already tried. The only things that I've hurt so far on this planet are a few flying hors....ponies with armour on." He lowered his weapon a bit. He noticed that Princess Celestia gasped when he mentioned hurting the ponies with armour on. "You said that they had armour on? Why did you hurt them?" "Because they were trying to attack me. I imagine that it was because of me being something that they'd never seen before or something, but I still had to defend myself." He looked at Celestia and saw a flash of anger in her eyes. He raised his weapon again and pointed it at her, just in case. He didn't want another angry pony trying to kill him. Celestia waved her hoof at him. "Calm down. I am not going to hurt you. I admit, it has made me a tad bit mad to hear that you have hurt some of my royal guard, BUT, I know that you were only doing it in self defense and that you were probably just frightened. You said that you've never seen a pony before, correct?" Sam nodded. "Well, we have ponies back on Earth, but they're nothing like you. They can't talk, they don't have horns or wings and they certainly don't have armour on. They are basically animals. But you...your eyes and the other ponies eyes that I have seen so far are disturbingly...human." Celestia nodded as well. "Seen as you hurt them in self defense, I will not put charges against you. But, I hope that none of them have been killed by your actions. If they have, it might be a bit more...complicated." Sam snorted at that. "I can't help if I killed them. I'm sorry if I did, but I only did it to protect myself. Anyway, when they were unconcious, I gave them a dose of my medical syringe. It stopped the bleeding, so they should be fine. So long as someone finds them." Celestia shifted a bit closer to him, which made him raise his weapon more. She put her hooves up. "Relax. You should know by now that I am not going to hurt you. You said that you gave them a medical syringe? What was in it, exactly?" Sam sighed, lowered his weapon a bit and nodded. "It has adrenaline in it. I don't know what the other stuff is that's in it, but what I do know is that it can save lives. It's a miracle that it stops someone bleeding to death if they're wounded." He saw Celestia smile a bit at that. "Thank you for at least trying to make sure that they wouldn't die from their wounds, even if you inflicted them yourself. And I understand that it was in self defense." Celestia tapped her hoof against her head and gasped as if she had just remembered something important. "Oh my, where are my manners? I've told you my name, but I never asked for yours. What is your name and I'm guessing you're a male due to your voice and stature, yes?" Sam nodded. "Yup. I'm a male human. My name is Sam Gideon, but just call me Sam." Celestia smiled. "Thank you for telling me your name, Sam. Now, if you don't mind, could we continue this conversation at the castle where I stay with my sister? Do not worry. You will not be interrogated or anything, I only wish to get to know you more and ask you a few questions. You do not seem like you want to hurt anypony on purpose if you don't have to. Is that okay with you?" Sam lowered his weapon and tapped his head in thought. "I still don't trust these "ponies", but what choice do I have? I can't radio Elena or Burns and I don't know what's on this planet. I wouldn't know where to go if I ran off or anything, anyway. Guess I have no choice..." Sam nodded at Celestia. "I guess I have no choice. Thank you for being understanding and kind, considering that I hurt some of your guard ponies." She smiled. "That is good. Thank you for cooperating. Shall we go?" Sam nodded. "Lead on, Princess." She nodded back at him, turned around and walked out of the old bedroom and Sam walked behind her. He frowned inside his helmet. "Hope this doesn't go as bad as my last encounter with these ponies..."
Chapter 5 - Screwing things upSam walked out of the old castle and followed Celestia. He was still cautious of her, but he couldn't really do much about it. If she wanted to kill him, she probably would have already tried it by now. "And she was pretty nice to me considering that I shot some of her guards..." When they got outside, he noticed that Celestia's horn was glowing. "Wait...one of the guard ponies from earlier did that to...what if it's some sort of weapon?" Sam wasn't taking any chances and raised his weapon up at her once more. He shouted her name to get her attention and as soon as her name escaped his lips, she looked at him. Shock spread across her face. "Sam, what are you doing? Why are you pointing that....weapon at me?" She took a step back and her horn started glowing even more now. She had to try and defend herself if he was going to do anything to attempt to harm her. "Sam...put that thing away. I don't want to hurt you, but I will defend myself if you try to harm me." He kept his weapon held up at her. "Why the fuck was your horn glowing?" Celestia was now sweating a bit. Her nerves had gotten the better of her. "Why am I so scared of him? I can defend myself....but...I still don't know what he's capable of or if my magic would even affect him..." She finally answered his question after what seemed like hours. "I was sending a message to Steel Blade. He's a Lieutenant in the royal guard." Sam still held his weapon up to her. "What if she's telling the truth, though? I'd be killing an innocent pony princess because I thought she was trying to kill me with her horn...then again...it's still a possibility. I have no idea what these things are capable of." He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard something coming towards him. He looked up and saw an armoured pony. Before it could barrel into his chest, he dodged out of the way. He turned around and shot at the pony that had just missed him. A bullet hit one of its wings and it came crashing down. Celestia gasped. "No...Steel Blade..." He heard a twig snap behind him. He spun back around to see Celestia. But, he could tell she wasn't happy with him right now. Her eyes looked as if they were full of fire. He raised his weapon and pointed it at her again. "I don't want to hurt you, Celestia. Back off." Celestia was fuming right now. Not only had her hurt some of her royal guards earlier (even though it was in self defense, she still had to retain her anger earlier when hearing about it), he'd just injured one of her Lieutenants, Steel Blade, right in front of her. She stomped her hoof on the ground. "SAM. YOU ARE TO NOT HURT HIM ANY FURTHER OR I WILL HAVE TO RESTRAIN YOU!" He stared at her under his helmet with a scowl on his face. "Listen, he nearly came flying into me. For no fucking reason. What do you expect me to do? Let him charge into me?" Celestia was going to attempt to use a paralysing spell on him, until she realised what was more important right now. She looked behind him to see Steel Blade unconscious, but breathing. "Thank Equestria....he's not dead...but I need to get him to a hospital. Fast." She walked past Sam and walked up to Steel Blade. Her horn glowed and she sent a message to her other royal guards that were currently in the Everfree. About 20 seconds later, a chariot came down. 2 winged ponies were at each side, supporting it. Sam had lowered his weapon by now, but was keeping it gripped firmly in his hand. He didn't want to let his guard down. The next thing what happened baffled him. Celestia picked up the injured winged pony with nothing. Literally nothing. All that he could see was a glow around the injured pony. She put him in the chariot gently. He noticed that Celestia's horn had the same glow emitting from it. He put it together piece by piece. "Shit, she can levitate things? I'm guessing that's what the guard from earlier was trying to do to me when I saw his horn glowing. I wonder why he couldn't pull it off, though..." Celestia was now talking to the other guard ponies who had come in with the chariot. "Get him to the nearest hospital, asap. As soon as you do, come back here with the chariot and I will escort the.....creature....to the castle." The two guards saluted and went back to the sides of the chariot, attached themselves to it via a leash sort of thing and pulled it into the air. They had gone by the time Celestia had walked back up to Sam. She looked at him with.....disappointment? "You didn't have to do that, you know." Sam was more confused than anything else right now. And annoyed at the same time. "Yes, I did. He was attempting to harm me. I can't allow that." She scowled at him. "Listen, I understand that you hurt some of my guards earlier in self defense and you did the same now, but I don't want any more harm to come to my subjects. You're lucky that I can hold in my anger so well. If I couldn't, I wouldn't have been so nice with you. Just don't hurt any more of my subjects. Because, if you do, I will have to take matters into my own hooves. Do you understand?" Sam was about to gob off at her when he remembered something. "I can't do anything towards her right now. If I do, then I've fucked my chances with the only creature that might be able to help me. If I'm going to survive while I'm here, I need to play it cool. Can't fuck things up between me and Celestia now, otherwise, I'll probably never get off of this damn planet." He looked at her with flash of anger in his eyes, but as fast as it came, it was gone. He looked at her with a neutral expression. "I understand. I am sorry for bringing harm to your ponies, even if it was in self defense." She was still incredibly annoyed at him, but she managed to keep a neutral expression. She sighed. "Good. I don't want to have to hurt you, Sam. Now, come on. Our chariot will be here any minute." He sighed. "That could have gone a lot fucking better..."
